#4 BULLET PROOF GLASS REALLY ISN'T

*CONTENT WARNING*
The following story includes descriptions of sexual assault.

”I was in a facility known as Intermountan. This is the type of place that would drive people to insanity, and then once they broke you there was no chance of ever getting out. This place was quicksand. The harder you worked to get out the deeper you got yourself.

One day my roomate cooper and i get a new roomate. I'm not gonna say too much about this kid because he had seirous problems and i know his behavior wasn't his fault. But he had a habit of pulling his pants and underwear down and then setting his genitals on the back of peoples heads. Good thing he never did it to me or he would be dead and I'd be in prison. Anyways one day he does this to cooper. He walks up behind him while he was sitting watching tv, he pulls his underwear down and starts humping the back of coopers head. It took 4 guards and a shot of tranquilizer to get cooper off of this kid. They put him in "solitary" for a week as punishment for attacking him. The kid who just sexually assaulted him didn't get in any trouble at all. Go figure right?

So now a week passes and cooper is back from solitary. And he seems.... Different. He's talking about the outside a lot more often now. And he was smiling. I'd never seen him smile before. So i knew something was up. In our room we have a big pane of bulletproof glass separating us from the outside world, separating us from freedom. This glass was thick. Probably 2 inches or more. And i understand why, there was a lot of dangerous people in this facility, they had to keep them in somehow. Gotta protect the sane people in the outside world from the crazies. So like i said this glass is unbreakable. I've watched another kid in his room try to break his window with a rock he snuck in from outside. No dice. The staff actually laughed at him as he tried, saying something along the lines of "trust us thats not gonna work". Not even a scratch in the glass. But every once in a while i would catch cooper inspecting the glass at night. I knew he was planning but i just figured whatever his plan was, it wasn't gonna work, so i didnt think much of it.

Fast forward probably another week and i wake up in the middle of the night to a cool breeze on my face. I bolt upright and look at coopers bunk. He's gone. Then i look to the window. Its gone too. And i dont mean he broke it. I mean the pane of glass was missing. He got the entire pane of glass out of the window frame and i guess he took it with him because it was just gone. Nowhere to be seen. So i did a quick mental inventory. Do i think it's worth it to risk getting tased for a chance at freedom? Hell yes was my answer. So i put on my pair of hospital crocs, and i hopped out window frame. And then i just went home. Nobody ever even came looking for me. That was the whole "escape". One night i just woke up and the window was gone, so i left. But thats not the end of the story.

Three or so years later im taking my new girlfriend to a restaurant she likes and guess who was sitting at the bar. Thats right it was cooper. As i approached him he instantly recognized me. He greeted me like an old friend, gave me a big hug. I look at him and a say "cooper. I gotta ask. How did you escape? Where did the window go that night?" His response still makes me laugh to this day. If im ever feeling sad or depressed i can think about this moment and it never fails to make me chuckle if not laugh out loud. So i ask "where did the window go?" He responds in the most badass chuck Norris voice "i took that bitch home as a trophy". Moral of my story is this. There are people that accept, and people who make change. Cooper was the latter.

Be like Cooper.”